The Day My Life Became Brighter
by TooManyFeelsBro
Summary: You could consider this just a normal day for Maria Beilschmdit. But there are three reasons it's not. 1. She's in New York City. 2. She's there visiting Amelia. 3. Her life is about to change forever.


Just a short one shot I wrote about Maria and how she found her daughter. Yeah, she's normally not like this at all. She's usually vulgar, vile, lazy, and rude. So this is a different side of her. I like this side of my muse. ouo By the way, if you didn't know, I role play as Maria on Facebook.

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You could consider this just a normal day for Maria Beilschmidt.  
But there are three reasons it's not.  
1. She's in New York City.  
2. She's there visiting Amelia.  
3. Her life is about to change forever.

Shiny, white-thigh high heels clicked on the gray pavement as the Prussian woman weaved through the crowd. Ugh, New York... Always so crowded and loud. How could anyone even hear themselves think in a place like this?  
You would think that someone like Maria would stand out in a place like this. But it's New York. So it's exactly the opposite. It's as if the people seemed to ignore her existence completely. As if there wasn't an albino in a mini skirt and tattered, navy blue jacket walking along in the crowd. Hell, they seemed used to this sort of thing!

But let's get back on track here. Let's get back to the sounds of New York. Oh, yes, the sounds. There was the honking of horns as a light switched from red to green, the loud, booming voices of the street vendors. The constant hum of the voices on the side walk as people talked into their phones and yelled at one another and to get out of the way. There was children screeching, dogs whining, people playing musical instruments for a couple of bucks.  
New York City was full of sounds.

Now Maria was rather annoyed by most of these sounds. It was too loud for her taste - Ironic, right? She usually just tried to ignore them and enjoy the city instead. Usually that wasn't the case.

But let's not forget about the city's many alleyways. From all that Maria had heard, they weren't places you wanted to be in. They were dark, damp, and reeked of urine. They were the place to go if you wanted to have a quickie with a prostitute or make some new rat friends. But they weren't the place you would want to wander in to.

Both the sounds and alleyways play a special role in this story. Why, may you ask? They're part of how Maria's life changes drastically. Yes, that sounds rather silly, I know. But it's true.

As she walked down the sidewalk, all she could think about was how she just wanted to get back to her hotel. She just wanted to get back to her hotel and flop down on the bed and take a nice, long nap. As usual, the sounds of New York were really getting on her nerves. It was like the people in this city couldn't be quiet for a second! The dogs couldn't shut up, the people couldn't stop blabber- Wait... What was that sound? That wasn't a sound she had heard in a rather long time. A very long time, to be precise. It was a whine. But not the whine of a dog. No, it was different. It was the whine of a baby. An un-happy baby. But... It wasn't coming from the crowd of people.  
Spinning on her heel, she shoved past the people walking in the opposite direction in the crowd towards the whining noise. It was coming from one of the alleyways... No, ugh.. Not one of those..

Well... She might as well check it out, just to be sure...  
Slowly venturing into the alley, her nose scrunched up in disgust.

"It does smell like piss..." She muttered to herself, covering her mouth and nose with her hand.

As she made her way further in, the whining became louder. And louder. And there was the source of the noise; A small baby. A small blonde haired, blue eyed, baby girl. She couldn't have been more than a few months old. This wasn't one of those television 'happy-baby-in-a-picnic-basket'. No, from what Maria saw, she was malnourished, almost naked, dirty, cold, and quite unhappy. She had to have been out here for a few days.. No one was around to take care of her, she was just hidden from everyone else. And it seemed like everyone else tried to ignore her whining and cries for attention.

Maria couldn't just leave the poor babe out there. Carefully, she reached towards the child, who seemed to flinch away from her a bit.

"Shh... It's okay." Eventually, the child seemed to realize that this woman wasn't a threat. She actually seemed quite nice. She reached out for her with a tiny hand, squirming slightly.

Maria smiled softly and gently took the tiny hand, reaching behind the baby's small, shivering frame to gently pick her up. She carefully slid her jacket off, swaddling the child tightly in it. "It's the best I can do right now, but we'll fix that in a little bit."

She quickly moved from the alleyway, and into the large crowd of people once again. Ugh.. Not again.

Shoving past the people, she looked at all stores and shops she passed on the way. There had to be one... Just one. Hm.. There we go!

"Mm... "Macy's"... I think Amelia said they had everything in there once..."

She shrugged and hurried inside to be greeted with more than what she expected. Wow.. But no time to look around, she had to find the things that babies needed. What did they need again? Clothes... Baby food... Diapers... Bottles... Pacifiers... Toys... Blankets.. Ugh, too much. Just the necessities right now.

After getting lost in the store multiple times, she actually found what she was looking for. Hm... No food. She could get that elsewhere though.

Maria randomly grabbed a few outfits for the child out of the girl section, not even bothering to check how they looked. The contents of her shopping cart were as followed: Blankets(3), toys(4), bottles(6), pacifiers(2), outfits and shoes(5), diapers(1 package). That should do it for now. All she needed was food...

The Prussian quickly moved to pay and shuffled out of the store.  
"Now we need baby food... Where do I get that..." She questioned quietly, looking up and down the street.

"Or maybe... I could just get a banana and mush it up. Ja, that works." She nodded to herself and hurried along the streets trying to find a market.

Finding a market proved to be less of a challenge than it seemed like it would be. Well, it was New York after all.. Upon entering the market, she was greeted by quite a surprise; No bananas. But that was okay! Because it seemed that they had formula and jarred baby food. Today was obviously her lucky day, in more ways than one.

Humming softly to herself, she simply swiped a few of the food items off of the shelf, not bothering to look at what their contents were.

After paying, she hurried out of the shop once again, the babe snuggled against her chest. She hurried down the street as quick as one could with so many bags. Let's see... Where is the hotel... It should be around here somewhere... There it is!

Maria ran through the automatic doors and straight to her room. She hurried inside and quickly set the quiet child down on the single queen bed. She dumped her recent purchases out on the bed and snatched up a bottle and a jar of food.

Darting for the bathroom, she rinsed out the baby bottle as best she could and filled it with water before dumping some of the formula in and shaking it.

"This isn't so hard!" She said excitedly, giving the bottle to the small baby, who eagerly drank it.

"Now to try the baby food..." She reached for a jar, looking around the room. "And I don't have a spoon... Oh well.~" She shrugged, looking at her hands. "Clean enough. I doubt she will really care."

After taking the bottle away from the baby, she opened the jar of food, scrunching her nose up at the foul odor.

"Mein Gott, that's disgusting!" She whined, sticking her index finger in the jar, making sure to get a good chunk of the green contents inside. Holding her finger out to the baby, she sighed through her nose and watched as the little girl leaned forward to eat it.

An hour and three jars of baby food later, both Maria and the child were a mess. The baby obviously had already been dirty, but now was even dirtier.

"Guess it's time for a bath." Maria sighed and picked up the child, sauntering into the bathroom. She started the bath, making sure to only fill it up a little bit. Since she had forgotten to buy the gentle soap specifically for babies earlier, she decided the hotel's complimentary soap would have to do.

Setting the child in the bath, she stopped the water and got all of the soap gathered up. She started with her hair, dumping a rather large glob of shampoo into her blonde hair and lathering it up. She grinned and made the girl's hair stand up in spikes with the shampoo before getting a cup of water to rinse it out.

"Ah, I can see your pretty hair now.~" Maria smiled and got the hotel's body wash, dumping it on a washcloth. She gently started washing the girl's skin, making sure to get all of the dirt off of her face and body.

After the girl was clean, Maria took her out of the tub and carefully dried her off with a big, fluffy towel. She carried her into the other room to get her into the pair of pajamas her had purchased for her earlier.

"Now how do you do this...?" She asked herself quietly, staring between the diaper and the baby girl. "I am so confused..." She sighed and stared at it for at least another minute. Maybe if she just stopped squirming- Ah! It doesn't go like that! Not like that either! One more try... Bingo!

"I did it!" The Prussian grinned in pride, holding up the now fully dressed baby. She popped a pacifier in the baby's mouth and swaddled her in a recently purchased fluffy pink blanket.

"You know, you need a name..." She said quietly to the sleepy baby in her arms. "Well.. You didn't cry at all during all of this.. You're rather peaceful. I know it's not a Germanic name... But I think I'll call you Serenity."

You could say today a normal day for Maria Beilschmidt.  
But there are three reasons it wasn't.  
1. She went to New York City.  
2. She visited Amelia.  
3. Her life changed forever.


End file.
